What you said upstairs is illusory
The longest-lived animal - sea turtles
Sea turtles appeared on the earth more than 200 million years ago , is a famous "living fossil". According to the "Guinness Book of World Records", sea turtles can live up to 152 years, making them the longest-lived animals among animals. Because turtles are long-lived animals in the ocean, people along the coast still regard turtles as a symbol of longevity. Just like inland people regard pine cranes as a symbol of longevity, people along the coast also regard turtles as a symbol of longevity. There is also the saying of "Ten Thousand Years Turtle". There are currently eight species of sea turtles in the ocean, four of which are native to my country, mainly distributed along the coasts of Shandong, Fujian, Taiwan, Hainan, Zhejiang and Guangdong. The largest group in my country is the green sea turtle.
Sea turtles often move along the migratory route in the upper waters of the coast. They do not mature until they are 20-30 years old. Whenever the breeding season comes, they return to their "hometown" in groups. , no matter how far away they are, they can find their birthplace and lay their eggs there. If the environment in the place of birth is destroyed, it may be sterile for life. The maximum number of eggs laid by sea turtles can reach about 200, and the minimum number is more than 90. Although the number of eggs is relatively large, the hatching survival rate is very low. When a baby turtle emerges from its shell, it must first dig itself out of the sand, and then rush toward the ocean. Going from the sand pit to the beach is full of dangers for the little turtles. Some hatchlings fall into the sand pit and struggle desperately to climb out of the "trap". At the same time, some natural enemies such as various seabirds are constantly circling in the air. These young lives serve as delicacies. In the end, only some of them can successfully reach the ocean. These survivors will grow and develop in the ocean, passing on a new cycle of reproducing future generations. How the turtles found their "homeland" is still an unsolved mystery. Green turtles living along the coast of my country have their egg-laying period from April to October every year. At this time, every night, they quietly climb up the beach one by one from the sea, use their hind legs to dig a pit about 20 cm wide and 50 cm deep, and then start to lay eggs. The eggs are white in color and about the size of a table tennis ball. Because the eggs mature at different times, it sometimes takes several times to lay all the eggs. After the eggs are laid, the entrance to the cave is blocked with sand. Under the sunshine, the temperature of the beach is relatively high. The eggs are hatched entirely by natural temperature. The time ranges from 40 to 70 days, usually around 50 days. Turtle eggs not only hatch by natural temperature, but their gender is also determined by the temperature. Female eggs hatch when the temperature is high, and males hatch when the temperature is low.
How turtles maintain gender balance is a very interesting question. In addition to being born and breeding on land, sea turtles mainly live in the sea. They can not only breathe with their lungs, but also use some special organs of the body to obtain oxygen directly from sea water. Their feet are paddle-shaped and suitable for paddling. Although sea turtles are clumsy on land, they float and sink freely in the sea. They are completely adapted to the marine environment. Turtles are large and active, and their food intake is much larger than that of land turtles. They eat a lot of fish, fish eggs, shrimps, crustaceans, molluscs, and algae every day.
Their teeth are hard It is powerful and can easily break the shells of molluscs. Judging from the living habits of sea turtles, the secret to their longevity is that they eat a lot, move slowly, and are protected by a hard shell.
The turtle is a treasure all over its body. Its meat is delicious and nutritious. Not only can it live a long life, but it is also a tonic with high nutritional value. Eating it can also make people live longer. It is precisely because of the high edible and medicinal value of sea turtles that they have attracted indiscriminate hunting and killing by humans. According to estimates by relevant nature conservation organizations, in the 1980s, more than 300,000 adult turtles were killed in the hands of humans every year. Taking Indonesia as an example, the number of turtles killed in the past few years ranged from 20,000 to 50,000. During the turtle breeding season, fishermen wait for the turtles to land on the shore and then suddenly run up to them and turn them over one by one. The sea turtles have very short legs. Once they are turned over, they cannot turn over on their own. Lie down and wait to die.
Due to over-hunting, turtles have no longer been seen on Bali in recent years. Some fishermen went to the sea to catch them when they saw that they could not catch them on the shore. This was also the case in Brazil in the past. The phenomenon of catching sea turtles and collecting sea turtle eggs was very popular, putting coastal sea turtles in dire straits. No wonder some people say that although sea turtles are long-lived creatures, human hunting has reduced the average life span of this species to its lowest point, and turtles that are hundreds of years old have become rare.
The decline in the number of sea turtles has aroused widespread concern in coastal countries, and a large amount of manpower and material resources have been invested in saving them. For example, Brazil has been trying to protect sea turtles living near the coastline of more than 1,000 kilometers since 1983. In the first year, more than 20,000 sea turtles were saved. Later, the number increased year by year. Now, more than 270,000 sea turtles are saved every year. Over the past 10 years, the total number of sea turtles that have been rescued has exceeded 1.5 million; in order to stop the wanton hunting of sea turtles in coastal countries including Indonesia, the South Pacific Environmental Protection Organization designated 1995 as the "Year of the Sea Turtle" in an attempt to attract people's attention Sea turtles are facing extinction; on the island of Phuket in southern Thailand, a hatchling release festival is held every April 13 to help the "little elves" who have just emerged from their shells crawl to the sea and prevent them from being encountered by other animals on the way. The Chinese government has always attached great importance to the protection of sea turtles. In May 1985, it established the first sea turtle nature reserve in "Turtle Bay" in Huidong County, Guangdong Province, and listed sea turtles as national second-level protected animals. Although the bay only covers an area of ??0.1 square kilometers, it is an important turtle spawning ground, with up to hundreds of thousands of eggs being laid. Turtles may seem clumsy, but they are actually quite humane. In late July 1995, when a certain 770 boat of the Navy was training in the South China Sea, a sea turtle was found swimming around the boat. The soldiers curiously picked it up and took a look. It turned out that its leg was injured and ulcerated. After half a It took months of treatment to recover. The sailors wrote the word "release" on its back with red paint and released it back into the sea. Unexpectedly, more than three months later, the turtle returned to the sailors, 60 meters away from where it was released. Many nautical miles. It's amazing why the turtle is so attached to the sailors and how it finds them. People save turtles, and turtles save people. In 1987, a ship sank due to a fire off the coast of the Philippines. A woman wearing a life jacket had been drifting at sea for 12 hours. When she was feeling desperate, two sea turtles swam under her and lifted her out of the sea. , she drifted at sea for another two days and two nights, until she was discovered and rescued by the Philippine Navy. In short, sea turtles are friends of mankind. They have lived on the earth for more than 200 million years. In order for this famous "living fossil" to live with us humans forever, we can no longer hunt them indiscriminately and destroy their habitats. living environment.